The Infinite Mind: Psychedelics

Saturday, September 6, 2003

LSD, psilocybin, mescaline… they’re listed as schedule one narcotics, right up there with heroin, amphetamines, and marijuana. But today, 35 years after “turn on, tune in, drop out,” we explore what scientists are learning about the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat disorders ranging from obsessive compulsive disorder to addiction. Plus, seeing God… and the DEA: “Psychedelics” features a report on a religious group called the UDV that’s suing the federal government for the right to drink ayhuasca, a sacramental tea that contains DMT.

Guests include Dr. Mark Geyer, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego; Dr. Debra Mash, professor of neurology, University of Miami School of Medicine; Dr. Charles Schuster, former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Jeffrey Bronfman, the North American representative of the UDV (Uniao do Vegetal) church who is fighting the U.S. government in federal court over his right to import a drug called huasca; and Bill Lichtenstein speaks with Nick Bromell, author of “Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psychedelics in the 1960s.” Commentary from John Hockenberry.